A Painful Wish
by KyuRisu
Summary: When Anabel, Looker, and Nanu are sent on a mission to Hoenn, a missing persons poster turns everything upside down. Anabel must make a painful choice to keep someone very precious safe. In other words, Anabel meets her alternate self. Light FallerShipping. ON HIATUS
1. Another Self

The longer Anabel worked at Interpol, the more she began to regain hazy memories of her past, before she had ended up on a beach in Alola. Most of the memories manifested as terrifyingly real nightmares, but others were merely sensations or Déja vu. That was alright with her though, because she had Looker with her. Looker was quite a bit older than her, but she and him shared too much in common to care. Both of them were so-called "fallers" that had come from different universe, though neither of them had more than the slightest memories of that separate life. So, caught up in lost memories and risking their lives, they had ended up falling in love. Which was why Anabel was currently snuggled up to him in a massively oversized t-shirt while he reluctantly took a phone call. What he heard on the other end made him want to scream in frustration. Another mission, this time to investigate a sighting of UB Symbiont in… lovely, Hoenn. He muttered an affirmative and put the phone down, looking at the sleeping woman beside him. He knew she had been regaining a few memories, and she was apparently from Hoenn… what effect would going there have on her? 'This had better not be another trip in which I end up making her hot cocoa in the middle of the night because she had a nightmare…' He thought bitterly, gently shaking her awake. He would never be able to forgive Interpol for manipulating a then thirteen year old child into joining their ranks. They should have tried to give her a normal life.

Anabel was woken by a gentle hand shaking her. She opened her eyes and smiled at the man looking at her, mumbling a good morning. But her happiness quickly turned to nervousness once she was told UB Symbiont had been sighted in Hoenn. As the resident Ultra Beast bait, of course it was her job to go investigate. The only comfort was that she would be accompanied by Looker and Nanu, an old friend of theirs. Reluctantly, she dragged herself out of bed and got ready to go to the airport, attempting to look like she hadn't slept in way too long. After a short drive and a long wait for no apparent reason, she, Looker, and Nanu were on their way to Hoenn. She could hear an angry whisper conversation between the two men, but was too distracted to care. She wondered if she would see anything from her memories. Did this Hoenn even look the same?

Nanu was quickly realizing that he was way too old for this job. He was technically retired but he had gone anyway out of concern for Anabel. Looker was also concerned, which was the only reason he was not strangling the man who was currently babbling on and on and on while the very lucky Anabel slept. "For Arceus's sake Looker, giving yourself a heart attack isn't going to help anything! Have at least an ounce of common sense and _please speak English._ Anabel will be fine. She's always fine. Just focus on keeping her safe instead of panicking." He hissed tiredly, wishing this blasted plane would just land so he could nap in a comfy hotel bed. After being forced to listen to Looker's barely-even-English for another hour, he was _finally_ able to step off the plane into relative quiet as it just so happened to be the middle of the night in the Hoenn region. The _dear Arceus Looker take the trench coat off_ Hoenn region. He really hated the heat. That was why he tended to stay up north. He grabbed a sleepy Anabel by the arm and guided her to the rental car, driving them to their designated hotel, incredibly relieved to go to sleep.

When morning came, all three Interpol agents were dressed and ready to go. The town was in full festival mode, as it was the first night of Tanabata, a festival to honor Jirachi. This was a particularly special Tanabata, as it was the thousand-year mark, when Jirachi was said to actually appear and grant a single wish. In order to blend in, each of them bought a token in the lobby and folded the first part down, making a wish. However, when Anabel stepped out the door her head started spinning. This town was familiar. Way too familiar. And yet totally unfamiliar at the same time. Instinctively, she reached for Looker's hand and cast her eyes towards the ground, setting out to the outskirts to investigate the last place UB Symbiont had been sighted. On the way there, they passed a missing persons poster, which only Anabel cared to look at. She immediately wished she hadn't. There was a picture of a little girl, age seven or eight maybe, with lilac eyes and matching hair. The name underneath the picture was "Anabel." She froze, heart pounding painfully in her chest as she looked at her spitting image. It didn't make any sense. And then, all too suddenly, it did. Without thinking she took off running, panicked. _She had to find that_ _kid._

Looker caught Anabel sprinting away from them out of the corner of his eye. He whirled around and called for her, but she didn't respond. Bewildered, he glanced at Nanu, Who now had his eyes fixed on the missing poster. "You better hope that wish comes true." He said grimly. "This is not looking good." Looker felt panic rise in his chest. "What do you mean it isn't looking good? What are you looking at?" "Anabel." He answered. "That is, Anabel's alternate self." Looker stared at him. "What?" Nanu turned to look at him. "This is the city where the Battle Tower is being built. By the time it's finished, an eight year old would be about eleven, right?" Looker nodded. "Anabel mentioned protecting a tower, right?" "Yes, she did. Now look at this girl here." He said, motioning Looker over. "This is undoubtedly the Anabel who will become the leader of that tower. The Anabel born in this universe." He sighed deeply. "Our friend Anabel has gone off to find her alternate self. Alone. In UB territory." Looker stared in disbelief at the poster, for once not having any words but one. "Shit."

Anabel has calmed herself down enough to try and think, realizing that she would need help and going back to the city, but her head hurt and her thoughts were fuzzy. She started to see double. ...No, not quite double… there were tiny differences in the images. She was remembering something. There was a massive tower on the horizon… wait, that had _not_ been there before. Then, she was swept straight off her feet by a memory that she had never wanted to regain. She was standing in a crumbling tower, holding onto a pillar as everything swayed around her. She could hear screaming and massive destruction. She had given everything she had but it had not been enough. And then she saw it. The beast. If she had not currently been "past Anabel," she would have instantly recognized UB Blaster. Instead, she stared paralyzed with fear at the foreign creature. She remembered the tower coming down with a titanic roar. She remembered praying for a swift death. She remembered being swept into darkness and cold as the creature stared at her with emotionless eyes. She remembered nothing after that.

Looker and Nanu had ended up setting up a tent, having decided it was best to wait and let Anabel come back on her own. The both of them were still sick with worry, and were instantly on high alert when a familiar scream was heard. "Anabel!" Looker yelled. "Anabel, over here!" He was met by a frantic and terrified woman, who immediately clung to him for some comfort. He wrapped his arms around her and tried to soothe her, recognizing her terror as a memory. He knew now that whatever the hell had happened before she'd ended up in Alola had not been pleasant. "Nanu." He said, voice shaking. "Hot cocoa please." The older man simply nodded and grabbed a packet of the sweet mixture and a bottle of milk, walking away. Eventually, Anabel was able to recall her hellish memory while drinking the comforting hot cocoa, leaving both Nanu and Looker completely shocked. Then Nanu quietly spoke up. "Do you remember which one it was?" He asked. Anabel nodded and opened her mouth to speak but was cut off by a searing pain in her head. This always happened whenever she tried to remember the beast that had taken her. But she wasn't going to let it win this time. "Blaster…" she choked out. "UB… Blaster…" As soon as she'd managed those words, she passed out, leaving the other two agents to carry her back to the hotel. They now knew the complete story of Anabel's "tower," and why she had left it. Neither of them spoke another word that night. All they knew was that this trip was going to be one hell of a ride, and that they weren't leaving until the alternate Anabel was found.


	2. Another World

The next morning, Anabel woke up early after a fitful sleep. She grabbed her token and folded down the second part, though she still hadn't made a wish. She was just doing it for some sort of comfort. She still had her mission, but now there was the second issue to deal with. She didn't usually drink hot cocoa in the morning, but now she needed its comfort. She looked out the window and tried hard to ignore the phantom tower she kept seeing. It appeared that of all the places for them to end up in a mission, they had ended up in the alternate Anabel's hometown. Silently lamenting the downright awful coincidence, she agreed to split the mission with her friends. She would focus on finding her alternate self, Nanu would focus on the Ultra Beast, and Looker would be a go between. That meant that Anabel now had to confront the lost girl's parents. She shuddered at the possibility of recognizing them, but steeled herself and went anyway.

Looker dressed himself as smartly as possible and rehearsed his lines as he prepared to go with Anabel. He was a police officer from a nearby city here to investigate a missing child with his fellow officer, Lila. They had chosen another name for Anabel to use, both help her distance herself and to distance her from the small Anabel for everyone else. She would be Lila for as long as they were here. He called for Anabel and they left, both of them feeling nervous as Looker knocked on the door to a plain, unassuming house. When a woman answered the door, Anabel's entire body went stiff. ' _Mother_ …' She almost reached out to hug her, but stopped herself, fighting back tears. She forced herself to speak. "Hello Miss. We are here to investigate the case of your missing daughter. I am Lila. Please, won't you let us in?"

A few minutes later, playing the part of a normal cop was proving nearly impossible for Anabel. Everything in her ached to call out to her mother and father and tell them that _she_ was their child, and that she had finally come home. But she wasn't their child. She wasn't their Anabel. She didn't belong to them, she belonged to two identical copies that were impossibly far away. She wasn't theirs. They weren't hers. She managed to keep herself together long enough to gather the information they needed, that little Anabel had run off to look for Jirachi four days ago and hadn't come home. After making it back to her hotel room, Anabel began to fall apart. She started shaking, her vision changing entirely to that of a little girl's and then back to an adults. She had longed from the moment she had woken up in a hospital bed to go home. And now she was the closest to home she was ever going to get _and it wasn't close enough._ She felt Looker's arms wrap around her, heard his soothing voice, and cried. She completely broke, sobbing like a child, with only the arms of the man she loved to hold her together.

Looker held Anabel as she cried, almost crying himself. It was so, so unfair for this woman to be forced to go through this. If only she wasn't Interpol. If only she had stayed in Alola and never come here. If only fate wasn't so damn cruel. Again, he made her hot cocoa, and told her stories of the many wonderful things he had seen in his life. Nanu came back after dark, as grim as ever, muttering something about an Ultra Wormhole having opened up over the mountains and closed again. By that time Anabel was asleep, and Looker was forced to listen to a report he _really didn't want to hear right now damn it Nanu,_ as he silently thought about what could have happened to this world's Anabel. She had been gone for four days. What was she eating? Where was she sleeping? What the hell were they going to do if they ended up finding a little corpse? Of course the _freaking_ Ultra Beasts just _had_ to ruin everything.

The next morning, Anabel had taken her Lucario out and gently told it to search for an aura almost exactly the same as hers, and walked the mountain paths searching for little Anabel. It felt so strange, thinking of the child as her. She _wasn't_ her, and yet in the eyes of this inverse, this universe that she had crashed into without ever really belonging, she _was_ her. Anabel wasn't _Anabel_ here. She was a stranger. An intruder. And it was painful to think about, but it was completely impossible to think about anything _else_ as she struggled with the headache and disorientation caused by the constant double vision. After a long, exhausting walk Lucario gave a sharp bark, having found an alarming aura. Anabel ran to it, stopping dead at a terrifyingly familiar aura. "Oh no…" She whispered, paling. An Ultra Wormhole has opened here. There was an Ultra Beast nearby. Anabel called out her Mismagius and then her Weavile a second after, on high alert but scared, so scared. The memory she had recently regained brought her blood pounding in her ears. She was frozen to the spot, unable to think or even move as UB Symbiont approached her, sensing her energy and planning to use her to get home. She gave a tiny whimper as she raised her hand to shield herself, closing her eyes in terror. Her Pokémon sensed this and leapt into battle, determined to protect their beloved trainer even if she gave them no orders. Anabel chose to run, something she would hate herself for later but something she could not help now.

Three long hours later, Anabel carried her exhausted Pokémon back to the city in their poke balls, unable to stop shaking. She stumbled, sliding down a small drop. She was so frightened she could barely think or even see straight. She couldn't get back like this. She grabbed her radio and sent out an SOS to Looker and Nanu, curling into a ball to calm her terror. Once the two men found her, they helped her walk back to the hotel, where she took an icy cold shower to calm herself. Furious at herself for being so damned awful at what should have been a simple mission, she muttered a stream of insults at herself, before emerging to tell Looker and Nanu what she and Lucario had discovered. The Ultra Beast was only part of the trouble. Lucario had sensed little Anabel at the same time. She had almost certainly ended up trapped in an Ultra Wormhole. Anabel shocked both men by announcing her intentions to go get her, even if it seemed impossible. Looker furiously disagreed, shouting that she wouldn't be able to control where she ended up. In a rare display of outright anger, Anabel snapped at him to shut up. They'd been sent here to solve the UB problem anyway, they were already in deep shit. She was not abandoning that kid. She couldn't. Seeing her… no, the _other_ her's parents so upset, seeing the pictures of a tiny, brightly smiling Anabel… that child deserved to be brought back home. If nothing else, Anabel would give her what she herself could never have. _Somehow_.


End file.
